"You were at Taku?" asked Ned.
"I deny everything!"
"You will deny your own fingerprints, the shoeprints?" asked Ned.
"Well, supposing, for the sake of argument, that I was at Taku, what has that to do with this brutal and illegal arrest?"
"You placed the powder under the house where the wounded men lay?"
"No."
"I have something I want to show you," Ned said, taking a paper from his pocket. "Have you a match?"
Almost involuntarily the fellow put his hand to his right vest pocket and brought forth a gold match safe. Ned took it into his hand and touched the spring which lifted the top.
"There seems to be a new wire in the hinge," he said.
"Yes, the old one wore out."
Ned opened his pocketbook and took out the gold wire he had found in the cellar by the side of the powder. The prisoner started violently when he saw it.
"Is this yours?" Ned asked.
"No!"
"All right!" Ned said.
With the point of his knife he pushed the sale and put the old new hinge from the match safe and put the old one in its place.
It fitted exactly.
"There!" Ned said, "you see the old one did not wear out entirely. It wore away so that it dropped out. Do you know where I found it, my friend?"
"It is immaterial to me where you found it."
"Even if I found it in a cellar by the side of a half barrel of gunpowder to which a lighted fuse had been attached?"
"Hadn"t you better make your case--if you can make it at all--in the courts?" asked the prisoner.
Ned took the state department seal, the sealing wax, and the bits of parchment from his pocket.
"Who met you in the library at the house you attempted to destroy?" he asked.
There was no reply.
"Were these men present?" with a sweep of the hand toward the other prisoners.
"What has this to do with my case?"
"This," Ned replied. "You were still conspiring to fix upon my government the crime of interfering in the private affairs of another nation--with the crime of providing, by a treacherous and despicable route, the money needed by the revolutionary party of China. You were doing business in that house with the representatives of another nation.
Who were they? What nations did they represent, or pretend to represent?"
"I have nothing to say to that."
Ned held up the seal.
"This was not used?" he asked.
"It was not used."
"Why not?"
"Because the representative of that nation refused to consider the terms offered him."
Ned held forth the sealing wax.
"This shows that the seal of another nation was used. Where is the paper to which the seal was attached?"
"Destroyed!"
"Is that true?" asked Ned.
"It is true, they all deserted me. They all ran away when they knew you were in the country, but I brought them back, and held them until the incident at the house where you found those things."
"So you are now the only one to look to for the history of this bit of deviltry?"
"I stand alone," was the reply. "Alone, with the exception of these men I who were arrested with me. The plot has failed, and we know what to expect."
The prisoner was about to say more, but just then a clamor in the street below attracted the attention of all in the room.
CHAPTER XX
THE EMPEROR TAKES A HAND
Ned stepped to the window and looked out. The street in front of the hotel was filled from curb to curb with an excited mob.
That the efforts of those below were directed toward the building and its occupants there could be no doubt. Many a shaking fist was thrust up to the lighted panes where Ned stood.
The boy turned to Jimmie, spoke a few words in a whisper, and the little fellow left the room. With him went the interpreter who had been engaged that day.
Shouts, howls and groans of rage now came up from the street, and Ned stepped away from the window. As he did so the prisoner who had been making a partial confession when the uproar came, moved forward, as if to show himself to those below.
Seeing his intention, Ned seized him by the shoulder and hurled him to the back end of the room. The prisoner smiled and again seated himself in the chair he had occupied before.
"Your friends are excited," Ned said, drawing the curtain at the window.